A common method of tracking an article if it gets lost is to attach a tag to the article with a name, phone number, and address provided thereon. The owner of the lost article hopes that a finder of the lost article will contact the owner. This method is not adequate or satisfactory because it usefulness is based on chance. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2013/0135097 discloses a device that can be contained within an article having a global positioning system (GPS) receiver and transmitter that is used to track the article's location over a long distance. The device also has a wireless Bluetooth transmitter and receiver so that the device can communicate with a cellular telephone and can receive a signal to produce a sound to locate the article over a short distance.
Articles which are commonly used, relatively inexpensive, personal, and easy to lose or misplace could be improved by having an inexpensive location feature. Providing a GPS tracking device with these articles often is not commercially feasible or practical. An example of such an article is a walking cane. Walking canes are used by people with physical impairments that require them to have additional support while walking. They are also used by visually impaired people to evaluate the surface before them as they walk. Walking canes provide a shaft that reaches from a convenient hand holding height down to the ground next to or in front of the walker. A single or multi-legged foot supports the cane on the ground and a handle provides easy control of the cane by a User. Canes can be relatively inexpensive, and a User may take a cane everywhere the User goes. Constructing a cane with a (WS tracking system is expected to make the cane too expensive. What is needed is a simple, inexpensive device to insert into or onto a cane, for example, that will alert the User of the cane (and others if desired) that the cane is lost and that will provide its location.